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Ed 737 Max Crashes (was Shutdown caused Boeing crash.)

novaphile said:
Boeing stating that the guy died of a self-inflicted wound is really nasty.

I was appalled when I heard that announced on the news here, and more appalled now that I see the article attributes that comment to Boeing.
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I think you're misreading the article, due to some very poor wording:
Boeing said it was saddened to hear of Mr Barnett's passing. The Charleston County coroner confirmed his death to the BBC on Monday.

It said the 62-year-old had died from a "self-inflicted" wound on 9 March and police were investigating.
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I'm pretty sure they meant the Coroner's office said he died from a self-inflicted wound.

I watched the John Oliver video a couple of days ago. As I said on my other forum, I found it both hilarious and heartbreaking. He very correctly identified the root cause as being Jack Welch.

I will take issue with him on one thing: The use of Boeing employees as FAA designated representatives. I worked closely with those folks for 20 years. A more honest and dedicated group of people you could not ask for. I will acknowledge that things could have changed some sine I retired in 2010.
 
It just doesn't stop for Boeing! A Chilean 787 took a sudden dive over the Tasman Sea, injuring 50 people:



The TL/DW: Boeing added a handy switch atop the back of the pilot's seat to assist in moving it in and out, to help the pilot get in. It's under a plastic cover. But if the switch is loose in its mount and someone leans on the cover, in this case a flight attendant bringing the captain a meal, the seat can go forward and cause inadvertent pushing of the control column in the nose down direction. Sheesh!
 
I think that the article may have been corrected.

When I followed the link, the statement was immediately after other quotes from Boeing, and not attributed to anyone else.

I'm still appalled that the 'self inflicted wound' stuff was announced at all.
 
novaphile said:
I'm still appalled that the 'self inflicted wound' stuff was announced at all.
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It's probably standard procedure for the coroner's office to make some public statement about their findings. Not sure why you find it appalling. It would have been gratuitous and in poor taste for Boeing to say it, which is why I'm inclined to doubt that interpretation. The coroner's office saying it makes more sense, and doesn't seem tasteless to me at all.
 
Another oopsie with 737-800

https://abc7news.com/united-flight-missing-panel-sfo-medford-oregon/14529741/

"United plane apparently loses external panel mid-flight after taking off from SFO, officials say

A United Airlines flight that took off from San Francisco International Airport Friday morning landed in Oregon with a missing external panel, according to officials.

United Flight 433 left San Francisco at 10:20 a.m. and landed at Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport in Medford shortly before noon, according to FlightAware. The airport's director, Amber Judd, said the plane landed safely without incident and the external panel was discovered missing during a post-flight inspection."​

If its Boeing, I ain't going!!
 
smartcooky said:
Another oopsie with 737-800

https://abc7news.com/united-flight-missing-panel-sfo-medford-oregon/14529741/

"United plane apparently loses external panel mid-flight after taking off from SFO, officials say

A United Airlines flight that took off from San Francisco International Airport Friday morning landed in Oregon with a missing external panel, according to officials.

United Flight 433 left San Francisco at 10:20 a.m. and landed at Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport in Medford shortly before noon, according to FlightAware. The airport's director, Amber Judd, said the plane landed safely without incident and the external panel was discovered missing during a post-flight inspection."​

If its Boeing, I ain't going!!
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I'm still trying to figure out how much of this is quality control issues from the manufacturer, and how much of this is airlines cutting corners on routine maintenance.

The door plug incident is pretty clearly a manufacturer issue. A lot of these others seem like they're happening to parts of planes that the airline is responsible for maintaining.
 
The aircraft in the latest incident is, according to the report I saw, a 737-800, and if I recall correctly was around 30 years old. At that point, it's almost certainly a maintenance issue, not a manufacturing or design issue.

EDIT: Source: https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/boeing...-from-california-to-southern-oregon-1.6809958
It's a 737-824, and was delivered in 1998 to Continental Airlines. United has had it since November 2011.
 
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The common thread for the string of the latest Boeing incidents is United.

The problem is not the plane. It's the maintenance. The latest panel missing shows a body that looks like it's been sitting in a junkyard.
 
Yeah, I think it's not just the manufacturers that are cutting corners. I'm about to stop flying, not because of the manufacturers, but because of the airlines. A manufacturing defect, you issue a recall, you do a mitigation or correction, Robert's your mother's brother. A maintenance problem with the airline? Good ******* luck, my dude. Take the train
 
smartcooky said:
Another oopsie with 737-800

https://abc7news.com/united-flight-missing-panel-sfo-medford-oregon/14529741/

"United plane apparently loses external panel mid-flight after taking off from SFO, officials say

A United Airlines flight that took off from San Francisco International Airport Friday morning landed in Oregon with a missing external panel, according to officials.

United Flight 433 left San Francisco at 10:20 a.m. and landed at Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport in Medford shortly before noon, according to FlightAware. The airport's director, Amber Judd, said the plane landed safely without incident and the external panel was discovered missing during a post-flight inspection."​

If its Boeing, I ain't going!!
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Man, that would suck to survive a scary thing like that only to end up in ******* Medford.
 
theprestige said:
I'm still trying to figure out how much of this is quality control issues from the manufacturer, and how much of this is airlines cutting corners on routine maintenance.

The door plug incident is pretty clearly a manufacturer issue. A lot of these others seem like they're happening to parts of planes that the airline is responsible for maintaining.
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As someone who used to maintain aircraft for the Navy, a missing panel sounds likely to be a maintenance issue rather than a manufacturing issue.

However, I can't say conclusively.
 
Puppycow said:
As someone who used to maintain aircraft for the Navy, a missing panel sounds likely to be a maintenance issue rather than a manufacturing issue.

However, I can't say conclusively.
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The retaining bolts for the plug were removed by the manufacturer so they could take the door off to fix an unrelated issue, but they weren't replaced afterwards. That is conclusively a manufacturing issue.
 
jeremyp said:
The retaining bolts for the plug were removed by the manufacturer so they could take the door off to fix an unrelated issue, but they weren't replaced afterwards. That is conclusively a manufacturing issue.
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Fixing an issue is maintenance not manufacturing. Maintenance involves more than just changing the oil.

If you want to blame it on Boeing manufacturing, discuss why the bolts were needed at all and/or whether a more failsafe system could have been devised.
 
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Lplus said:
Fixing an issue is maintenance not manufacturing. Maintenance involves more than just changing the oil.
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You understand that the issue jeremyp is talking about happened during the manufacture of the aircraft concerned, right?

It was carried out on the production line, by the same workers actually manufacturing the fuselages, propulsion systems and wing systems on the line at Spirit Aerosystems, and the work was signed off by the same Boeing supervisors that sign off all the steps and tasks during manufacture.

You might want to split hairs and call this actual, specific task "maintenance" on a technicality, but this happened at the factory where these aircraft are manufactured. The FAA would not be impressed by your hair-splitting.
 
smartcooky said:
You understand that the issue jeremyp is talking about happened during the manufacture of the aircraft concerned, right?

It was carried out on the production line, by the same workers actually manufacturing the fuselages, propulsion systems and wing systems on the line at Spirit Aerosystems, and the work was signed off by the same Boeing supervisors that sign off all the steps and tasks during manufacture.

You might want to split hairs and call this actual, specific task "maintenance" on a technicality, but this happened at the factory where these aircraft are manufactured. The FAA would not be impressed by your hair-splitting.
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Yes, I will split the hairs, and I don't give a stuff what the FAA think. Taking the plane to bits again to fix a problem is maintenance. As to being signed off by Boeing staff, I thought the problem was that the actual workers were Spirit staff working at Boeing and there was no actual sign off of refitting the bolts since the quality systems were incompatible.

And I see you don't feel there should be any criticism of the design? No wondering if putting springs under the hinges was perhaps a mistake since the absence of the bolts allowed the springs to help the door upwards? No? okay then, it was just perfect as it was...
 
jeremyp said:
The retaining bolts for the plug were removed by the manufacturer so they could take the door off to fix an unrelated issue, but they weren't replaced afterwards. That is conclusively a manufacturing issue.
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Are we talking about the same incident? United Flight 433? Was it a panel or a door?

https://web.archive.org/web/20240321131047/https:/www.faa.gov/newsroom/statements

March 15, 2024
Commercial Aviation / Medford, Oregon

United Airlines Flight 433 landed safely at Medford Airport in Oregon around 11:30 a.m. local time on Friday, March 15. A post landing airline inspection revealed a missing panel. The Boeing 737 departed from San Francisco International Airport. The FAA will investigate. Please contact the airline for more information.
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Lplus said:
Fixing an issue is maintenance not manufacturing. Maintenance involves more than just changing the oil.
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A fault was discovered while they were manufacturing the plane. They* dismantled part of the plane that had already been assembled to gain access to fix the fault. They then reassembled that part but without the necessary retaining bolts. All this happened while the plane was still being built.
If you want to blame it on Boeing manufacturing, discuss why the bolts were needed at all and/or whether a more failsafe system could have been devised.
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There was a hole in the side of the fuselage that you could put a door in. Not every airline wanted a door there, so Boeing would put a "plug door" in place instead. This is a door shaped bit of metal that you aren't supposed to be able to open during the normal course of operations but you are supposed to be able to open/remove for maintenance.

Bolts are fastenings that are typically used in all sorts of places to hold bits of the aircraft together. They are well understood technology and are not normally an issue unless you forget to put them in or install them improperly.

In this case, the bolts weren't actually load bearing components, they were just there to retain the door plug in the correct position. The load (caused by the pressure differential inside and outside of the plane was born by a series of lugs.

I think you should read the documentation on the Alaska Airline incident. You'll see that the issue is squarely with the manufacturer in this case.

* the manufacturer: Boeing
 
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Lplus said:
Yes, I will split the hairs, and I don't give a stuff what the FAA think. Taking the plane to bits again to fix a problem is maintenance.
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Well, if we are splitting hairs, maintenance is "the process of preserving the condition of something". In this case, they were not preserving any kind of condition, they were fixing a manufacturing fault. That is part of the manufacturing process, and more importantly, it was done by the manufacturer, not the customer, which is what really counts here.

As to being signed off by Boeing staff, I thought the problem was that the actual workers were Spirit staff working at Boeing and there was no actual sign off of refitting the bolts since the quality systems were incompatible.
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Whatever the cause, the plane was being manufactured by Boeing and Spirit was Boeing's subcontractor. The buck stops with Boeing.
And I see you don't feel there should be any criticism of the design? No wondering if putting springs under the hinges was perhaps a mistake since the absence of the bolts allowed the springs to help the door upwards? No? okay then, it was just perfect as it was...
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How would you design a removable door plug to account for any possible bodging by the assembly line workers?
 
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